Shares of General Electric (GE) have surged more than 15% after the industrial conglomerate said it would sell its biopharma business to Danaher for $21.4bn (€18.9bn), its first major asset sale under new chief executive Larry Culp.

The first US face transplant patient has braved the glare of publicity to show what modern medicine can do.

An American soldier accused of killing an Iraqi civilian then planting a gun on the body was suffering from sleep deprivation and too tired to know what he was doing, his lawyer claimed today.